After a recent article I've written, I got to thinking about what others in the gaming world feel about this topic. During my RP exploits, I've seen various reactions towards those who roleplay a character that is a different gender as them in real life. Anywhere from not caring, to being kinda puzzled by the thought, to plain ol' being creeped out. Even though I have many female toons in my character arsenal, my current mains have been male for a good long while and I've received a surprising amount of flak from people, both men and women, just because I am a girl behind a male avatar.

So, in light of this, I'd love to have your opinions on the matter being I intend to make a follow-up post with a more recent sampling of what the playerbase thinks about this subject and others. You do not have to roleplay to answer these questions and no matter what your stance on the matter is, all input will be valued. The only thing I will ask of people is that any answers given in response need to be serious ones. Thanks in advance!

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1) What are your thoughts of men playing female characters? Of women playing male characters?

2) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying female characters? Of women roleplaying male characters?

3) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying lesbian female characters? Of roleplaying gay male characters?

1) What are your thoughts of men playing female characters? Of women playing male characters?Well you do have to stare at the character's ass for 80 levels...might as well be attractive. Sometimes it's because the models for one side of the fence or the other aren't that attractive (I have a thing for male Tauren, despite being female myself). Or it's to divert attention - I've rolled male characters in the past to avoid being fawned over by other players.

2) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying female characters? Of women roleplaying male characters?If you can do it well, go for it. If you're a guy trying to act like a large-breasted Asian schoolgirl, it's exaggerated to the point of being flat out poor roleplay. Quality matters.

3) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying lesbian female characters? Of roleplaying gay male characters?4) What are your thoughts of women roleplaying lesbian female characters? Of roleplaying gay male characters?Again if you can do it well without exaggerating to the point of being crappy roleplay, have at it. The majority of people who try to cross the gender/orientation gap end up having a stupid plot with little thought or one that's entirely based on sex when Azeroth has bigger issues than what's in your pants on a chilly Goldshire night.

I mean, Ice wouldn't argue about a gal joining her in her bed, but the druidess is more focused on training others and soaking up knowledge than bedding anyone.

I'm a male IRL but I tend to play female characters mostly. I just prefer their casting/attack animations over their male counterparts lol. I also play on an RP server and have RP'ed as a female before. A majority of my friends on my server also play and RP cross gender, even the RL females.

1) What are your thoughts of men playing female characters? Of women playing male characters? As long as they take the RP seriously, crossgender RP doesn't matter to me at all.

2) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying female characters? Of women roleplaying male characters? Same as above.

3) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying lesbian female characters? Of roleplaying gay male characters? Sexual orientation for RP reasons is fine as long as the player takes the RP seriously and isn't looking to hop in to the nearest inn for some ERP.

4) What are your thoughts of women roleplaying lesbian female characters? Of roleplaying gay male characters? Same as above. The best RP'er I've every met was a RL female that RP'ed as a gay male Blood Elf. They just have to be in to the character.

I've roleplayed for years on games outside of WoW. When it comes to roleplay, I'm typically doing so to act out a character who is, at least in some way, not me. The easiest way to do this is sometimes a flip-flop of gender. When dropped into something that foreign to your own skin, you're forced to explore and attempt to act in a fashion appropriate for this character who is most definitely not you without the usual comforts of the familiar. Okay, so men and women actually aren't all that different, but I found it enough to jolt me into exploring a character entirely unique unto itself. I even found roleplaying females more comfortable in time, as there was this subconscious perception that a wider range of emotions were available to me in my character's casual behavior.

Stretching beyond to other sexualities, I've dabbled in less. It still falls in line with breaking out of that comfort zone and playing someone other than yourself, though it starts to impose on the comfort zones of others, and so I've chosen to keep it minimal. Some people are simply not comfortable roleplaying sexuality in any capacity.

If you're not roleplaying, then the gender of your character, I feel, doesn't really go any deeper than picking a race because they look cool. I probably choose more female than male characters, depending on race, simply because I'm the one that has to stare at them from behind for hours on end, and seeing the general hazy outline of a vaguely female shape at 3am through blood-shot eyes makes killing my 8,000th boar-like-creature for yet another nondescript organ that tiny bit more tolerable.

1) What are your thoughts of men playing female characters? Of women playing male characters?2) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying female characters? Of women roleplaying male characters?3) What are your thoughts of men roleplaying lesbian female characters? Of roleplaying gay male characters?4) What are your thoughts of women roleplaying lesbian female characters? Of roleplaying gay male characters?

My answer is the same for all four questions: It's fine. In character is not out of character. It should not matter what gender the person behind the mask is, your character is having a relationship with their character, not you with them.

The only comment I can make regarding people playing opposite genders or characters with various sexualities is to please try and make it somewhat believable.

Hello there I'm new around here. Anyway, I think there's nothing wrong with roleplaying or playing a charactermof the opposite gender, as well as playing a gay or lesbian character. I'd be interested to know though, if there are any players who role-play a romance as, for example, a female character with a male character (when the female is really a male) without knowing the gender of the other. Just curious. I also have to say that I play female characters a lot now, since about a month ago because, to be honest, i just got sick of the male ones. And also, the main reason I see no problem with cross gender rp, is because when you are roleplaying, you become the character, in my opinion (although not in one of those "I want to escape real life" ways. For example, I have a female Mage called elladra, and I am a male. However, when I play on her, I am no longer a guy with a regular life and job, etc, I am elladra, Mage of storm wind, who grew up in lakeshore and is afraid of bats (please not that I am not saying that females are scared easily, like many people will say, it is just her character. I have a male Tauren druid who is afraid of spiders, for example). Thank you for paying attention to my longwinded post =)

Might I also add, that when i typed up the previous post yesterday, on my shiny new iPad, the auto-correct changed some things, like separating Stormwind into two words, and making Lakeshire Lakeshore. And also, the main reason I'm curious about people RPing a relationship while playing cross-gender, is simply because, despite what I said about actually becoming your character when you roleplay, I find myself unable to have a romantic RP when playing on any of my female characters, and I'd like to see if anyone else feels the same, or differently.

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